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Tagne 2001 |
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Dan's DiaryDay 7 - Wednesday 4th July 2001
I had a restless night. I took a dose of Imodium to prevent frequent toilet visits, but this gave me stomach aches. My knee had flared up and any movement only aggravated it. I was woken dead on 7am by Sonam bringing us a cup of tea. At 7:30am we were each brought a bowl of water so we could have a wash. Then it was time to stuff the sleeping bag back in its stuff sack and pack our rucksacks. Bang on 8am the porters started to take down our tents, letting them dry in the morning sun. Breakfast was eaten in the mess tent. Porridge, toast and omelettes were on offer and very nice they were too. I managed to eat a bit of everything and felt much better afterwards. Andy said he was a bit better and said he no longer wanted antibiotics, not that Jon had been prepared to give them to him the previous evening when he had considered taking them. After breakfast we finished packing and then sat and watched as the porters started to clear everything up. I counted four donkeys. Surely the four of them couldn't carry everything we had. A few minutes later another eight horses came over the mound, stopping by our camp. For a moment I had had a vision of us having to carry the four heavily laden donkeys because they were unable to stand under the weight they were carrying. We left the porters and horsemen to finish dismantling the camp and load up the donkeys at 9:20am. We dropped down to the road and then cut across some hairpin bends as the road dropped down towards the river. It was a warm morning. The sun shone brightly, only interrupted by fast moving patchy clouds. The river sped down the valley, like a boiling mud pot. The scenery was spectacular and immediately lifted our spirits. It was nice to be trekking and away from the filthy streets of Manali. There was a picture of a horn painted on a rock by the side of the road, just before a sharp bend. Steve did a rather good impression to warn anyone coming the other way of our presence. We were led by one of the porters. He was a little old man but he still carried a big sack on his back with ease. He never showed any signs of tiredness and gave the impression that he could keep going at his pace, which was just as fast as ours, for days. Of course we had much lighter rucksacks as we were still getting used to the high altitude.
It wasn't long before we came to the first uphill. Andy started to drop back, still weak from not having eaten much over the previous day or two. We stopped at 9:50am, for Alan and Andy to catch up. Alan had stopped to take a photo, put on a long-sleeved shirt, apply some sun cream and have a drink. As we waited I watched an elderly man further up the road. He was removing large stones from the road and putting them by the side of the road. This guy was the Indian equivalent of the Highways Agency and all he had was a shovel to scrape the stones to the side of the road. The flat-tipped shovel looked as though it had once been round, reflecting the many years of scraping it had undergone. As we rested, the daily bus came along. Narinder flagged the first one down, but it was full. He jumped on the following bus, which took him to Chhatru, our campsite for that evening. The tarmac road soon turned into a stone track and the chap from the Indian Highways Agency obviously had his work cut out. We soon passed him as he stopped frequently to fill in pot holes and clear fallen stones. The track started to ascend again. We stopped again at 10:25, having walked up a tough uphill section. I was beginning to realise why Narinder had taken the bus. Alan and Steve took the opportunity to fill up their water bottles from a roadside stream, using iodine to purify the water. I went to have a drink from my water bottle. I was amazed to find lots of floating bits in the water, but I remembered that the things you can't see often do the damage. I splashed water over my face and arms from a roadside waterfall, helping me to cool off in the ever-rising heat. On the other side of the valley a large stream had carved a deep gorge out of the hillside. The water flowed over a series of waterfalls into pools hundreds of feet below in a spectacular cascade of water.
In Manali, when people were being ill, I began to wonder why Alan, who had experienced similar on previous expeditions had chosen to join us. A day on and I could understand why. There was something magical about the scenery, and we hadn't come across a snow-capped peak yet. Every hour a truck or a jeep would pass us, and disappear into a cloud of dust. Sonam soon caught us up, and talked to the porter who was leading us. There were several groups of people working at points along the road where maintenance was required. They stopped what they were doing and looked at us in silence. There was no welcome or polite conversation, at least the truck drivers honked their horns and gave us a wave. Andy decided we would take lunch at 11:40am, on top of a small mound by the roadside, that we'd reached. Prayer flags were attached to a long wooden stick that stuck out of the ground. On the other side of the road there were two stone buildings with blue tarpaulins for roofs. Sonam and the porter lay out our lunch. I looked on in amazement they kept laying stuff on the picnic cloth. Silver (steel) plates, polished cutlery, half a dozen different spreads, rolls, nuts, tuna, fresh and dried fruit and chocolate bars, this was a feast not a lunch. Alan concluded from the taste that the tuna was tinned in diesel oil. Whatever oil it was I liked it. Andy didn't eat much: he took a nap instead. Sonam and the porter waited until we'd finished eating and then they had their lunch. We watched our donkeys coming up the road. They very quickly overtook us, some of them stopped to munch the grass by the side of the road as their horseman came up the mound to meet us. The rest headed off up the dirt track and around the bend. A chill wind had got up and was now blowing up the valley, forcing me to replace my shorts with trousers.
The lunch was packed away at 12:40pm in the porter's rucksack and we rejoined the road, heading after the donkeys. The road descended in series of zigzags. We cut across the bends taking the direct route down across boulders and grass. Andy was feeling better, Sonam had taken his rucksack, and the sleep at lunchtime had done him good. We stopped again at 1:40pm, as the heat was taking its toll and we were spread out over a wide distance due to the different speeds at which we were all walking. The rest of the ponies passed us. A bridge could be seen crossing the river just before a bend in the valley. The map told us we would camp near the bridge and so we knew we were only a few kilometres away. We soon overtook the heavily laden donkeys, Andy now able to keep up with us. Alan was taking it easy at the back, not wanting to tire himself out on the first day. A few spots of rain started to fall but thankfully nothing much came of it.
We crossed the bridge into the village of Chhatru. I caught glimpses of the raging river through the gaps in between the loose wooden beams, which lay on top of the rusty iron girders that spanned the river. Not wanting to hang about I waited until I got to the other side before having a good look around. Another camp had been set up next to the bridge, but there wasn't much sign of life. We walked through the small village, which had a handful of dhabas and other buildings. Sonam found a suitable area for tents, on the far side of the village, downslope from the road and near to the river. Sonam asked us if we wanted to camp there or go on and camp at a site 2km up the road. It was only 2:30pm and 2km wouldn't take long to walk, but it was hot and Andy, Steve and Alan were already resting with a glass of tea in the dhaba, so we decided to stay put. The donkeys followed us into the camp, and the horseman started to remove their loads one by one. One of the donkeys was happily sniffing away at a pile of donkey poo on the floor. Just as I thought, "no, you don't want to eat that", the donkey moved forward and promptly stood in it. Feeling content the donkey went to scratch itself by rolling in the dust. The horseman saw what the donkey was doing and whistled at it to get up. He rushed over and took the load off the donkey's back, so it wouldn't injure itself. All the donkeys were eager to have a good scratch, many before all their strapping and blankets had been removed. The horsemen were yelling at them and going around as fast as they could to remove everything. Our three extra porters, who had also taken the bus to Chhatru, came and helped the others start to put up the tents. The sun came out again, shorts were put back on and the sun cream was reapplied. As soon as the mess tent was up we were in it, welcoming the shade. We played cards and were brought deep-fried battered curried vegetables, the leftovers from last night, at 4pm. Three platefuls of the things came, and needless to say they were all eaten. I had been a bit worried over how much food we had left the previous evening. I didn't want the cook to get the wrong impression. It wasn't left because we didn't like it, it was left because we weren't feeling hungry or well. We were each brought a bowl of water and a jug so we could wash if we wanted to. The horsemen were busy mending a donkey's hoof. They had tied three of the donkeys together so they wouldn't try and run away.
Narinder organised a cricket match with the locals. We reluctantly agreed and made our way down the road to the centre of the village. The road was too hard to get the stumps into, so rocks were put around their bases to keep them upright. We had a knock about, first with the tennis ball, which was far too bouncy on the stony wicket. It soon got lost in a grassy field and they returned to using a cricket ball. Other residents came and sat in the dhabas, under the tarpaulins, to watch the game. Jon went into bat for the opposition, after they'd lost a wicket or two. He hit a couple of big ones that sent the fielders running round a house and into a field looking for the ball. The bat of the home team sensationally snapped as a one of them played a stroke. The ball didn't go anywhere but half the bat flew through the air towards the other wicket. Luckily it was broken down the length so I ran off and returned with the gaffer tape. Much to the delight of the locals we were able to mend the bat so it was useable again. We got them all out for a dubious 50 and then only managed to get about 10, no thanks to me who got nil points. During our innings a truck came down the road. Someone picked up the stumps and everyone cleared the way, retreating to the front of one of the dhabas. The driver decided he was still going to go round the small pile of stones left where the stumps were. As the truck pulled off the road it hit a pothole filled with muddy water. The water squirted out hitting an old man sitting in his chair in front of his home and a small child who he was holding. The man jumped up and waved his arm in disgust as the lorry rounded the bend and headed across the bridge. We returned to camp for our tea at 7pm, after I had found my tennis ball in the long grass. Chicken and mushroom soup was served and was followed by rice, coleslaw, dhal, spinach and other vegetables. The coleslaw was determined to be the previous days salad. No one had felt brave enough to eat it, which was a shame really because it was beautifully presented. It was tempting to deliberately not eat the coleslaw just to see what they'd make it into the following day. Alan dropped the lid to the vegetable pot on the floor, adding to his spilling of tea at breakfast and putting him in the lead for the fumbling award. The food just kept coming, three plates of rice, another bowl of dhal, it just went on and on. Narinder kept dishing it up on to our plates, piling on more than we wanted. I soon learnt that to get the amount you wanted you had to say that that was enough two spoonfuls before you had what you wanted. For me this meant I often said that was enough before they'd started to dish anything up. In between courses Andy got talking about puritabs, saying "you can taste the ten minute ones but not the thirty minute ones" Steve said "that's because they contain less chlorine" "No" I said, entering into the conversation "Its because they contain more chlorine" Then it suddenly dawned on me that he was talking about the thirty minute puritabs and I was talking about the ten minute ones. The word mallet sprang to mind. Fruit Salad was brought for pudding and tea soon followed.
After tea, we cleared the mess tent so the porters could sleep in there. Narinder told Andy he thought we should get the bus straight to the Chandra Tal. But it turned out the bus only went to Batal, which would only save one day trekking. He seemed to use the fact that we were at risk from bandits as a reason for taking the bus but it turned out that the risk was only from passing motorists in Chhatru, because the camp could be seen from the road. After a big discussion that lasted for the best part of an hour Andy made the decision to not catch the bus and stick with the planned trek. This would have several benefits, not least help us acclimatise, improve our fitness and remove the possible problem of arriving in Batal a day before the donkeys. Meanwhile there was a separate debate between Alan and I whether a light in the sky was a star or a somebody's head-torch on the ridge. I was confident it was a star and sure enough within the hour it had moved clear of the ridge. Alan and Steve took some night photos of the clear moonlit sky. I left my knives and Leki poles by the entrance to my tent just in case some bandit decided to pay us a visit, before crawling into my sleeping bag around 10:30pm.
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© Copyright Steve Jolly 2001. |
